Who is Online

We have 80 guests and no members online

 

Thessalonica is known for Alexander the Great and his sister. Subsequently the Roman general, Pompey the Great, was based here, during his civil war with Julius Caesar. Cleopatra and all that. Pompey was assassinated in Egypt.

It became an important Byzantine city before falling to the Ottomans, where it became the Empire's second largest city.  Thus, it's also famous as the birth place of Kemal Atatürk. There are still many remnants of the Ottoman Empire around town. Alexander is less evident. But it's all Greek now.

 

Ottoman remnants - generally dilapidated

 

Our last full day in Greece. In comparison the islands, Thessaloniki is rather mundane; and the poor state of the Greek economy doesn't help. It's not high on our 'must return' list. The food was good though and a local pub had Guinness.

 

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki

A stroll to Aristotelous Square and the Ladadika area followed by
our last evening meal in Greece. Ending, as we began, with moussaka and retsina.
No hat on the table in this photo.

   

On our long day to Plovdiv, in Bulgaria, from Thessalonica, we got a cab to the bus station; a bus to Sophia; another cab; to get a rental car (at the airport) an airport shuttle; and so to a long drive, in a gutless little car, to our hotel.

Without our prompting the cab driver in Thessalonica launched into an attack on the illegitimate North Macedonia for usurping Alexander the Great. I didn't argue. But it was a subject that came up when we were there. It was all Macedonia back then. Alexander was born 25k inside modern Greece. 

To learn about fascinating Bulgaria, Click here...

 

 

No comments

Travel

Italy

 

 

 

 

A decade ago, in 2005, I was in Venice for my sixtieth birthday.  It was a very pleasant evening involving an excellent restaurant and an operatic recital to follow.  This trip we'd be in Italy a bit earlier as I'd intended to spend my next significant birthday in Berlin.

The trip started out as planned.  A week in London then a flight to Sicily for a few days followed by the overnight boat to Napoli (Naples).  I particularly wanted to visit Pompeii because way back in 1975 my original attempt to see it was thwarted by a series of mishaps, that to avoid distracting from the present tale I won't go into.

Read more: Italy

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Book of Mormon

 

 

 

 

Back in the mid 1960's when I was at university and still living at home with my parents in Thornleigh, two dark suited, white shirted, dark tied, earnest young men, fresh from the United States, appeared at our door.

Having discovered that they weren't from IBM my mother was all for shooing them away.  But I was taking an interest in philosophy and psychology and here were two interesting examples of religious fervour.

As I often have with similar missionaries (see: Daniel, the Jehovah’s Witness in Easter on this Website), I invited them in and they were very pleased to tell me about their book.  I remember them poised on the front of our couch, not daring or willing to sit back in comfort, as they eagerly told me about their revelation.  

And so it came to pass that a week ago when we travelled to Melbourne to stay with my step-son Lachlan and his family and to see the musical: The Book of Mormon I was immediately taken back to 1964.

Read more: The Book of Mormon

Opinions and Philosophy

Losing my religion

 

 

 

 

In order to be elected every President of the United States must be a Christian.  Yet the present incumbent matches his predecessor in the ambiguities around his faith.  According to The Holloverse, President Trump is reported to have been:  'a Catholic, a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, a Presbyterian and he married his third wife in an Episcopalian church.' 

He is quoted as saying: "I’ve had a good relationship with the church over the years. I think religion is a wonderful thing. I think my religion is a wonderful religion..."

And whatever it is, it's the greatest.

Not like those Muslims: "There‘s a lot of hatred there that’s someplace. Now I don‘t know if that’s from the Koran. I don‘t know if that’s from someplace else but there‘s tremendous hatred out there that I’ve never seen anything like it."

And, as we've been told repeatedly during the recent campaign, both of President Obama's fathers were, at least nominally, Muslim. Is he a real Christian?  He's done a bit of church hopping himself.

In 2009 one time United States President Jimmy Carter went out on a limb in an article titled: 'Losing my religion for equality' explaining why he had severed his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after six decades, incensed by fundamentalist Christian teaching on the role of women in society

I had not seen this article at the time but it recently reappeared on Facebook and a friend sent me this link: Losing my religion for equality...

Read more: Losing my religion

Terms of Use

Terms of Use                                                                    Copyright